The Xbox Achievements for Picnic Wars on Windows Phone ripen at last

Broken Xbox Achievements aren’t especially common in Windows Phone games these days … Mostly because new Xbox Windows Phone games have become so lamentably rare, not because the certification process has improved. One such game that has suffered from a less-than-working Achievement is Picnic Wars, a Nokia exclusive game from Chillingo that launched a short while ago on January 10th.

In record time, Chillingo and Nokia have published an update to fix up Picnic Wars’ Achievement issue. Learn more after the break.

Ammo nation

The previously unattainable Achievement ‘Bumper Harvest’ required players to unlock all types of ammo. You’d do this automatically by progressing through the game, so anyone who finished Picnic Wars should’ve gotten it. Thankfully today’s version 1.2 update puts ‘Bumper Harvest’ in working order.

In fact, if you’ve already met the requirements, it should unlock the next time you boot up the updated game. The update also adds a reminder to rate the game from the title screen. It does not, however, add the basic feature of in-game volume control that we take for granted in other games.

Updating pains

We have to commend the game’s developer for responding to player complaints about the broken Achievement and working so quickly to fix it. Microsoft also allowed the update to go through far quicker than normal, which might just have something to do with Nokia being the publisher. That said, our source tells us the update was actually approved earlier this month and took more than a week to go live after approval…

A little soap boxing: my happiness about this update is lessened by the fact that the Windows Phone Store doesn’t want me to have it. Much like Angry Birds Star Wars Hoth update, I’m unable to download this one. Each time I try, the update gets about halfway through downloading before it suddenly fails. The resulting error code: c101a7d1. Apparently it’s a longstanding certificate issue that Microsoft has yet to fix. Forgive me if I’m a little bitter that the Windows Phone Store has randomly decided that I don’t own two games I purchased and will not allow me to update them.

Update: After speaking with Microsot support, I repurchased Picnic Wars and received a refund for the purchase. However, I lost my save data in the process.

Food Fighters

Flinging those sour grapes aside, Picnic Wars is quite a unique little game. It centers around the conflict between fruits and vegetables – a tale very much like Romeo and Juliet, only without all the kissing and poisoning. Players take control of one side in the campaign’s first 32 levels, and then switch to the other in the remaining 32 levels (which are harder remixes of the previous campaign).

The actual gameplay revolves around tossing food at forts in order to eliminate the enemies within and cause as much structural damage as possible. But instead of being all physics-y like Angry Birds and its ilk, aiming the catapults here is mostly a matter of dragging catapults back and forth and choosing the right kind of ammo for the target. Check out our review for more delicious details.

Picnic Wars costs $2.99, just like all Nokia Xbox exclusives. You can view its Store page here.

The update didn't fix the issues though. game still crashes to game hub when finishing a game when it should show the stats screen. there for It didn't fix the achievement issues. All this update did was relist it I see 0 changes in actual game play & all the same issues are still present.

I was an early adopter on the Windows Phone and have discovered there must be a time limit on app purchases. Whenever I go to update older apps (purchased 2 years ago), the all come back with the c101 error. When I deleted one of the apps I had previously paid for and tried to reinstall it, I'm informed that I must purchase the app when I click the Buy button, not the expected "You've already purchased this app..." response I expect to receive. So, I checked my purchase history on the Marketplace and sure enough, no history before August 2011 (I have many confirmed purchase e-mails since January 2011 that are no longer available). To test my theory, I deleted an app purchased from that time period that I don't use, and just as I thought, if I want to reinstall the app, I must purchase it again. So, before you delete an app to try to fix the c101 error, be sure it is an app you are willing to do without or pay for again.

It's a pretty ridiculous issue... But you can contact Xbox support via chat for a partial solution. They'll have you rebuy the game and then refund you for the second purchase. Problem is you lose your save data since you have to remove it from your phone to rebuy it. Such a hassle, and the error keeps happening to me with different apps and games over time.